


Verisimilitude

by WanderingAlice



Series: Anagnorisis [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, M/M, Ouch, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:43:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingAlice/pseuds/WanderingAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's the Winter Soldier. That's all he's ever been, and all he'll ever be- a tool, a weapon. Except, there's one problem. A man with a star on his shield.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verisimilitude

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was going to cover the movie in four chapters, one from Natasha's POV, one from Steve's, one from Sam's, and the final one from Bucky. But in the end, it fit much better to just do the whole thing in one go, and keep it within Bucky's view. 
> 
> While this is part of a series, it is not necessary to read the other parts to understand what's going on. But if you like it, you might also enjoy Chthonic. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

The mission had been simple. Kill the man with the eye-patch. The man had been difficult, but they’d warned him about that. He’d fled to an apartment, not his own, and gone inside, hiding out of the soldier’s line of sight. The soldier settled in to wait. And then, the man with the shield had come. There was something about him, something important. The soldier couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t he remember?

The man climbed in the window as the soldier watched. He felt an echo of emotion, something other than rage. That wasn’t right. He was a tool, a puppet. He had no emotion save for the ones his masters told him to have. All the same, a part of him was crying out in shock and… joy? Perhaps the scientists had made a mistake the last time they wiped him. When he returned, they would repair it.

The target talked to the man with the shield. Stood. Moved into range. The soldier took the shot. The target went down. The man with the shield came after him. The soldier ran. Stopped. Caught the shield the man had thrown. It felt familiar in his hands, like he’d held it before. But that wasn’t possible. He should have killed the man, he’d seen the soldier, knew he’d killed the target. But the mission didn’t say he had to. So he didn’t. He ran.

The scientists didn’t wipe him that night. There might still be a mission for him. He slept in the chair, and dreamed of a small man with the same face as the man with the shield.

 

“Want some milk?” The man with the orders asked. The soldier thought _Milk’s good. Means you’ll have strong bones. That’s what the nuns say anyway. Don’t think it really works though, or I’d be as strong as you!_ He shoved the thought away. It came from nowhere. Didn’t apply. He took his orders. Two Level Six targets. Kill the man with the shield, and the woman with him. He decided to focus on the woman first. There was something about the man that made him very uneasy. It felt almost like a part of him was trying to wake up, but that was insane. He was already awake.

He tracked them down on the highway. There were four people in the car. Deal with them first. Leave the man with the shield for last. He threw the bald one out of the car. Collateral damage. The car stopped and he catapulted off it, using his arm as a break. And then he was back on top of the car as his backup forced it forward, removing the steering wheel. Then the car was crashing, and for a moment he felt a gut wrenching fear for the man with the shield. He shook it off and took the weapon that was handed to him. Shot it, and the man with the shield was blown backward. That same part of him cried out. He crushed it. He had a job to do.

The man with the shield was nowhere to be found. The soldier looked, not seeing the woman either. Then shots rang out, and she shot his eye protection. He ripped them off. The protection wasn’t worth anything if he couldn’t see. She fled. He pursued. The others that had been sent with him attempted to deal with the man with the shield, but the soldier knew they would fail. The man with the shield was his.

He tossed a grenade from where he could hear the woman’s voice. As it exploded, she attacked. A garrote wire, and then something that sent electronic pulses up his arm, disabling it. He ripped the thing off, and his arm repaired itself. He found the woman, aimed, shot her in the shoulder. He raised the gun for a kill shot- and the man with the shield ran towards him.

He dropped the gun just in time to block a blow from that shield with a punch of his own. The impact forced them both backwards. He took a shot at the man, who ducked behind his shield and ran around the car. There was something familiar about the way he fought, like the soldier had fought him before. But no. He had never encountered the man with the shield before the first mission this week. They traded blows, strength nearly matched. And then he got the shield. Once more, it felt familiar. He _had_ held it before, had even fought with it. Used it in battle. When? No. Distractions. He threw the shield. It embedded in a van, and he was rid of it and the flashes of memory it brought. He pulled out a knife, and the man attacked.

They were too well matched, their fighting styles similar mixes of martial arts from around the world. But he knew where the man was going to be, how he was going to move. He couldn’t say how, he just did. The man backed him up against a car. He turned the table, grabbing the man around the throat with his metal arm. He could kill him like that, squeeze until his throat collapsed, but there was something… something about his face. The soldier threw the man away from him.

More blows were traded. He got the man against a van, knife carving a gash in the metal by his head. The man got his shield, blocked the knife. They fought. The man grabbed him by the mask, flipping him. The mask came off. He turned, expecting an attack, but the man stood there, face reflecting incredulity, disbelief, quickly fading into shock.

“Bucky?”

Emotions ripped through him. Anger, Sorrow, Fear, Joy, Hope, Love. Foreign contaminants. He did not have emotions. “Who the hell is Bucky?” he spat, anger the only emotion he understood. He couldn’t look away from the man with the shield. Had to understand…

The other man from the car, forgotten until that moment, attacked, knocking him backwards. He righted himself and looked for the man with the shield. He still stood there, despair clearly printed on his face. The soldier had caused that expression on many people before, but it had never felt so personal. And he had not yet even cornered the man. He raised his gun to shoot. His target simply stared at him. Had he lost the will to fight? The woman fired a rocket at him, forcing him to duck out of the way. The puppet masters called him back as their men came in. He left, taking one last look at the man with the shield. His face... he looked utterly destroyed. The soldier did not understand.

 

Back in the chair, they patched him up. Fixed his arm. He hardly noticed. The man with the shield haunted him. Those eyes. He’d known him. He was sure he’d known him. How? He couldn’t remember. He remembered a train. Someone telling him he was the fist of Hydra. That name brought rage boiling up in him. He threw the man working on his arm across the room. His handlers pointed their guns at him. He didn’t care. They could shoot, but they couldn’t tell him how he knew the man with the shield.

The man with the orders came. The soldier could hear the handlers telling him not to enter, but he did anyway. The guns were lowered. The man demanded a mission report. Something in the soldier said _go to hell_. He stayed silent, trying to taste the thought. Where had it come from? The man backhanded him. He was supposed to speak. So he did.

“The man on the bridge. Who was he?”

“You met him earlier this week on another assignment,” the man with the orders said. But that was wrong, a lie. He _knew_ the man with the shield. Not in the way you knew someone you met once. He knew his fighting style, his movements. His face. His eyes.

“I knew him,” he tried to tell them. He needed to know how he knew him. How did he know him? The man with the orders talked. The soldier tuned him out. What he was saying didn’t matter. What mattered was the man with the shield. They wanted him to kill him. “But I knew him,” he said.

The man with the orders told the handlers to get him ready. He accepted the mouth guard and leaned back. The shocks tore into his brain, shredding any thoughts he tried to keep. They kept shocking him, wiping away the memories. For the first time he could remember, he tried to hold on to something. One by one, his thoughts and memories went away. At last, he had only the face of the man with the shield. And then it, too, was shredded. He was an empty shell once again.

 

They left him to wait outside of their office building. He needed to be there in case the target showed up. The minute they knew the target was there, he got the orders. Get onto the carriers, protect them until the targeting system went active. He went to the SHIELD airfield and got rid of the pilots. Then he took a plane.

The man with the wings flew up onto the carrier, bringing the target with him. There was something… but no time. The soldier attacked, throwing the target off the carrier and going after the man with the wings, tearing one from the suit and sending him falling. The man had a parachute, but he wasn’t the target. So long as he was off the carrier, the soldier didn’t care what happened to him. The man with the shield was alive, and still on the ship. The soldier knew where he was going. He would meet him there.

The man with the shield stopped when he saw him. His eyes… there was something about his eyes.

“People are gonna die, Buck,” he said, talking to the soldier as if he knew him. The soldier had a flash of memory, another mission, this man’s face with despair written across it. “I can’t let that happen.” The soldier stared at him, trying to place the memory. This man was his mission, his target. But when he said “Please don’t make me do this,” the soldier felt grief over the way his voice choked up. He kept his face impassive. Now was not the time for thoughts. He had a target he had to kill.

The man’s face grew determined, resigned. He threw the shield. The soldier blocked, and battle was engaged. He shot the man, and was momentarily horrified by the spurt of red from the wound. The man pushed him back. He recovered and attacked once more, this time with the knife.

As they fought, he thought he could remember earlier battles with this man. His movements were familiar, predictable. He was more focused on getting something out of the computer- one of the chips- than fighting the soldier. The soldier could use that, distract him, keep him from accomplishing his goal. They went over the edge, falling together. A chip fell from the target’s belt. He picked it up, and the soldier kicked it from his hand. They fell again. The man raced ahead, trying to get the chip. The soldier picked up the man’s shield. He remembered its weight, lighter than it looked. He threw it.

They engaged again, standing over the chip. His target needed it, so the soldier needed to keep it from him. His knife went into the man’s shoulder, and he screamed. Rage filled the soldier, rage at anyone who would make the man scream like that. It was wrong. He directed the energy back to the fight. He went down, but he got the chip. The man rushed over, trying to take it from him. He picked the soldier up with one arm, lifting him high in the air. Then he flipped him, slamming him to the ground and grabbing his arm, trying to make him drop the chip. The soldier struggled, and screamed as his arm snapped. He got the man on his back, underneath him. But the man had him in a choke hold, and wasn’t letting go. He struggled, trying to stay conscious. The warm body beneath him felt familiar, too familiar. He got a flash of cold nights, two boys huddled together for warmth. He tried to fight, to finish his mission. Lights out.

He woke up alone. The man with the shield could have killed him. He hadn’t. The soldier reached for his gun. Pulled the trigger. He shot the man twice, but something kept him from making it a kill shot. The man reached the computer. He was about to succeed. The soldier raised his gun. It would be too easy to shoot him in the head, to end it right there. He shot him through the stomach. The man fell. The soldier froze. Something was wrong. Part of him was screaming, crying out that he needed to help the man. He stood paralyzed as the man forced himself up and plugged in the chip.

The man fell again, and gave someone the order to fire. The soldier was thrown as rockets impacted the carrier. A metal beam fell across him. He screamed, trying to force it up. He didn’t want to die!

Then the man with the shield was there. The soldier prepared himself for the killing blow, but that wasn’t what the man did. He lifted the metal so the soldier could crawl out from under it. He didn’t understand. Did the man _want_ to die?

“You know me,” the man insisted. And those words conjured up warm summer days, a pencil sliding over paper, baseball games. They weren’t his memories… were they?

“No I don’t!” The soldier roared, attacking the source of his confusion. The carrier rocked in mid-air, separating them.

“Bucky,” the man with the shield stood, panting. “You’ve known me your whole life.”

The soldier screamed, hitting the man. This man was his mission, he had to kill him. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. The carrier rocked again, another explosion. The man with the shield stood, looking at him with too-familiar eyes.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Shut up!” The soldier yelled, attacking wildly. The man didn’t attack back. Didn’t even defend himself. Why? Why were his words making sense? Why did the soldier recognize that name? What was happening? For as long as he could remember, there had been only the mission, and the ice. Now there was fire, and memories he couldn’t claim as his own.

The man’s helmet came off, and the soldier saw his face. He _knew_ that face. It belonged… belonged to… he knew his name. He should know his name. What was it?

“I’m not gonna fight you,” the man said, and dropped his shield. It fell through a gap into the floor, splashing down into the Potomac. “You’re my friend.”

The soldier froze, images from nowhere assaulting his mind. That broken part of him was screaming again, beating against the walls the soldier had never tried to tear down. He gave an inarticulate snarl of rage, focusing on the one thing he knew he had to do. He had to complete the mission. He took the man down, sat on top of him. “You’re my mission,” he said, and punched him, wanting nothing more than to beat that look of absolute sorrow off of his face. The man still didn’t fight back. He raised his fist to deliver a killing blow.

“Then finish it,” the man said, looking him in the eyes. Those eyes, those damn blue eyes. He knew them. How? That part of him that was screaming was now desperate, beating down the walls of conditioning, crying out for him to stop. “’Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line,” the man finished, eyes never leaving the soldier’s face.

His mind exploded, the screaming part bursting to the surface. His eyes went wide. He did know this man. His name was… his name was… The ship broke apart, debris crashing through the floor, tearing it out from under them. The soldier caught himself with his metal hand. The man with the shield fell. He watched, paralyzed. His name… his name was Steve.

The soldier dropped after him. He had to save him, save Steve. He pulled him from the water, waited to make sure he was breathing. And then he ran.


End file.
